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Name: ADAMS, Laurence Pentecost
Nee: son of William Adams
Birth Date: 16 Mar 1925 Nairobi
Death Date: 10 Dec 2012 Sherborne, Dorset
Profession: Land surveyor
Married: In Nyeri 20 Oct 1956 Kathleen Stirk b. 24 July 1922, d. Oct 2012, nurse
Children: three
War Service: E. Af Div. of 14th Army in Burma
School: Nakuru School, Prince of Wales
General Information:
https://prabook.com/web/laurence_pentecost.adams/643228 Bachelor of Science in Engineering, University Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1951. Diploma in photogrammetry, University London, 1964. Doctor of Philosophy, University East Africa, 1970. Laurence Pentecost Adams, surveyor, educator. Achievements include patents for Cape Town Stereotactic Pointer; research in application of stereo photogrammetry in the measurement and mapping of the human form, including dental research, the morphology of the lumbar sacral spine. Harper-Somers fellow, University Newcastle, Australia, 1995. Staff, provincial surveyor Her Majesty Overseas Civil Service, Survey of Kenya, 1951—1963. Senior lecturer then professor, head department surveying and photogrammetry University Nairobi, 1964—1972. Professor photogrammetry and surveying University Cape Town, 1972—1990, emeritus professor, head biostereometrics unit department biomedical engineering faculty medicine, 1991—1999. Visiting professor University Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1976. Lieutenant Royal Art., 1943-1947.
Staff, provincial surveyor Her Majesty Overseas Civil Service, Survey of Kenya, 1951—1963. Senior lecturer then professor, head department surveying and photogrammetry University Nairobi, 1964—1972. Professor photogrammetry and surveying University Cape Town, 1972—1990, emeritus professor, head biostereometrics unit department biomedical engineering faculty medicine, 1991—1999.
Visiting professor University Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1976. Lieutenant Royal Art., 1943-1947. Member of International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (chairman working group 5/4 1985), South African Society for Photogrammetry Remote Sensing and Cartography (president 1980), Royal Institution Chartered Surveyors (president Kenya branch 1970).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/a1058821-f474-4946-b0d8-67c260f55a11/phor.12020.fp.png Laurence Pentecost Adams, BSc (Eng.), PhD, FRICS died in a nursing home in Sherborne, Dorset on 10th December 2012 at the age of 87, just six weeks after his wife's death. They had been married for 56 years. Adams had a long and varied career in both photogrammetry and surveying. He was held in high regard by colleagues, students and professionals from many disciplines. Adams was born in Nairobi, Kenya on 16th March 1925. He was educated at home on his father's farm, Koru Farm, until the age of 10 and then went as a boarder to school in Nakuru, some 100 miles away. Aged 14, he moved to the Prince of Wales School in Nairobi. He left school at the end of 1942 at the age of 17 and volunteered for army service, joining the Kenya Regiment. After training, he went into the Artillery and was posted overseas to join the 11th East African Division of the 14th Army in Burma. He was sent back to Kenya for officer training just before the end of the Second World War and left the Army in 1947 as a Second Lieutenant. His army duties involved the survey of gun positions and this led to an interest in land surveying. Being eligible for a university course paid for by the Colonial Government of Kenya, Adams decided to read the subject at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa where he graduated BSc (Eng.) in Land Surveying in 1951. He then joined the Survey of Kenya as a Staff Surveyor and rose to the position of Provincial Surveyor before leaving in 1963. During this period, he undertook surveys in many parts of the country with great care and attention to detail. These were the days of the last "real" land surveyors with month-long field campaigns in the African bush, living under canvas and hunting for the pot along the way. There was also the Mau Mau uprising and the resulting state of emergency to contend with and for a time he was recalled to the Army for map-making work. On a brighter note, he did meet Kath during this time. She was an English nurse working at a hospital in Nyeri and they married in 1956. In 1963, Adams went to the UK to study for the Graduate Diploma in Photogrammetry at University College London, which he gained in 1964. This was to be the start of a career change to academe. After a brief spell as Lecturer in Surveying at Nottingham Regional College of Technology (now Nottingham Trent University), he returned to an independent Kenya as Lecturer in the Department of Land Surveying at University College, Nairobi (a constituent college of the University of East Africa which became the independent University of Nairobi in 1970) to teach mainly photogrammetry and astronomy. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1966, Professor in 1970 and served as Head of Department from 1966 to 1972. The academic staff at this time was mainly expatriate and included a young Paul Cross, the late Bill Barnes and the late Robin Fursdon.
